What is it with the first 2 levels of medium buyin live MTT?

[betgo]

In $500-$1000 live events, the first 2 levels are typically 25/50 and 50/100 with 10K starting chips. It seems everyone is just trying to flop a big hand and win a big pot. There are generally a zillion limpers and not much preflop raising. Preflop reraises are usually big pairs. You get a lot of multiway pots where no one will bet because no one connected strongly. It seems you can steal a zillion pots preflop or postflop.

In a way this is softer than early levels of low buyin Internet tournaments or even low buyin live tournaments, where there is a lot of loose action.

These live tournaments tend to be weak/tight the whole way, but as you get further in there is a lot more stealing and restealing.

Has anyone else noticed that this deep stack period tends to play like a bubble? I don't know if people are afraid to bust out early or they don't see the value of picking up a lot of small pots with deep money.